Yeah, isn’t that a cool picture? It’s the one someone showed me to point out what color the moon really is compared to the Earth! They both have the same amount of sunlight on them here.
The moon’s not white! It’s concrete-gray! It only looks so shiny when compared to the void of space!
I love learning things I didn’t expect to learn. Like when I learned that it’s called the “dark side” of the moon because it’s the side we don’t see, not because sunlight never hits it.
In her last years, along with her sons, daughters and grandchildren, she added at least 16 tigers to Ranthambore’s population. What would have happened to Ranthambore without her is unimaginable, but she rode out the crisis years, and finally handed the prime range of the lake areas to her daughters to fight it out. She moved several kilometres away to lead the last years of her life. Her teeth were worn out — one was broken, and as the years rolled by, she lost all of them and still managed on occasions to kill and eat deer. Though she was helped by the park management, I still could not believe her ability to survive. By the end of 2015, she was the world’s longest living wild tigress. I saw her in early 2016, scaling a mud wall with such surety — it was just astonishing. Twice in her last year of life, she walked back to her original range of the lakes, spending a week each time at her old haunts. Few other tigers fought with her. They seemed to accept the fact that she was the grand old lady of the lakes.
— Valmik Thapar, “The Machli I Knew: Remembering the grand old dame of Ranthambore National Park”
The turn of the century was very troubling for tigers. Big hauls of tiger skins were reported across India and the booming illegal trade in China had put a price on every tiger’s head. It was in this climate that Machli conceived her first litter. There was a severe drought in 2002 and most of the lakes were drying out; it was at this time that the tiger–crocodile conflict was at its peak. One hot afternoon, while Machli and her cubs fed on a sambar deer, an enormous crocodile tried to join the feast. Machli’s devotion to her cubs was legendary, and to protect her food and her cubs, she raced towards the 12-feet crocodile. Her ferocity was unimaginable and the battle lasted nearly an hour. Machli smashed its head with her powerful paws — the crocodile died a slow death but Machli had rewritten the natural history of tigers for the world to see. It was the first recorded encounter of a fight between these two predators and remains etched in the annals of natural history. Fateh Singh had been proven right — she became a star as several BBC documentaries recorded her life. She was the tigress of the lake and entertained every visitor with her unruffled demeanour. More than anything else, she stirred the soul of those who saw her. Her base for herself and all her litters was the ruined Mughal summer palace at Rajbagh on whose balconies she lazed and watched the world go by. Today, her daughters do much the same.
Sphere = the ideal shape for maximizing internal volume with minimum surface area, thus best shape for not lose heat. Sphere stay warm! Sticky outy bits get cold!!
nimble, a border collie-papillon mix, wins the 12” class in the 2024 masters agility championship. the first time a mixed breed has won at westminster ever.
The Penguin: GIANTS! no way! I’m gonna wave at them THEY WAVED BACK! Holy Shit they’re dancing with me! My Wife is never gonna believe this OMG I got to dance with a Giant today so cool.
The Humans: Penguin! No way! I’m gonna wave at it IT WAVED BACK! Holy Shit it’s flapping with me! I got to play with a Penguin today; so cool.
You see I too often sat in school classes and thought “when am I ever going to need this, I’m never going to be an engineer, I’m never gonna be a scientist, I’m never gonna be a linguist” and then I grew up and it turns out a lot of bigots and cults and scams and grifts hinge their entire business model on you just. Not knowing what a protein is or some shit
If people knew what a fucking atom is and how molecules are defined, at least a quarter of all health related cults like movements and scams wouldn't work.
"Ohh it's a different sugar than refined sugar" it's the same molecule.
"Ohhh my water filtering apparatus making beauty water and cleaning water and alkaline water" Water is H20. What you're doing is reverse osmosis, and if it's alkaline then there is a substance that's not water in there to make it alkaline. You can't purify water to a pH of 12, because pure water molecules have, by definition of how the pH system works and several phyics rules, a pH of exactly 7.
"Ooohh it has ~different~ sodium atoms." That's called an isotope and sodium isotopes aren't created by magic woowoo, and the magical ability of most isotopes is radioactivity.
"Low toxin" what toxin. Tell me their names. What are they doing. "They are endocrine disruptors" what part of the endocrine system? How? Do you have a source that doesn't try to sell you something?
"Just mix vinegar and baking soda to cleanse all the toxins of your fruits" you just created water molecules and CO2, and some calcium and acetate which don't have much chemical property. That's a science fair vulcano. And doesn't have acidic or alkaline properties to chemically influence anything. Just use tap water at this point. "My wood cutting board soaked in an alkaline solution from baking soda to clear out the toxins leaves a nasty looking soup" yeah because you were dissolving the wood with an alkaline solution. Congratulations.
"There is effective microorganisms in this ceramic bead and it can cleanse your laundry and dishes and prevent mold in your fridge and it works for years" what microorganisms exactly? How did you discover them? What are they eating? Are they resistant to 60 degrees and steam? Do they procreate in the fridge? Are they spreading out on all surfaces to prevent the mold or is it an air filtration system that works without airflow or is it just magic? "Put them in your flowers, they can reverse cavities, put them in your walls" what are they eating in my walls? What kind of microorganisms are they? Did you test the safety of those things in human bodies? Are they native to my biotope? How do they survive in those fucking ceramic beads?
"Just use vinegar it's magic" it's a mild acid. Like, cool, sure, it works for several things, but it doesn't have magic properties. It's just a mild acid. Lemon juice is too. And once again, if you mix it with baking soda, they neutralise each other and you get water. Which cleans a lot of things but you dont need to do *all that* to get your hands on some plain water.
Low-cost tech and joined-up funding have reduced illegal logging, mining and poaching in the Darién Gap – it’s a success story that could st
There are no roads through the Darién Gap. This vast impenetrable forest spans the width of the land bridge between South and Central America, but there is almost no way through it: hundreds have lost their lives trying to cross it on foot.
Its size and hostility have shielded it from development for millennia, protecting hundreds of species – from harpy eagles and giant anteaters to jaguars and red-crested tamarins – in one of the most biodiverse places on Earth. But it has also made it incredibly difficult to protect. Looking after 575,000 hectares (1,420,856 acres) of beach, mangrove and rainforest with just 20 rangers often felt impossible, says Segundo Sugasti, the director of Darién national park. Like tropical forests all over the world, it has been steadily shrinking, with at least 15% lost to logging, mining and cattle ranching in two decades.
But in the past three years, Panama has mounted a surprising fightback that could offer hope to the rest of the world’s forests. In 2022, the government took a hard line on deforestation and modernised its park ranger force, partnered with the NGO Global Conservation and deforestation in the park began to fall. That fall accelerated when President José Raúl Mulino took office in July 2024.
Mulino purged the environment ministry of corrupt officials and introduced a blanket moratorium on logging to stop companies exploiting indigenous logging permits. The park ranger force was expanded with 30 new recruits and 11 forestry officers, swelling numbers from six to more than 40. The number of patrols has grown from almost zero in 2022 to 55 in 2024, with more than 150 expected in 2025.
“People don’t look at us the same way any more,” Sugasti says. “Now the kids are asking when they can sign up to become a ranger!”
In an era when cash-strapped governments are slashing environmental budgets, Jeff Morgan, the director of Global Conservation, which partners with the park, says: “It’s a miracle.”
“I’ve been in this industry for more than 10 years and worked in 22 countries. I’ve never seen anything like this,” he says.
Global Conservation supported the park with new trucks, boats, food and fuel, giving the rangers the tools and confidence to reach areas they once avoided. “Now if we have to go by boat, by truck or by foot, we will go there – no matter how far it is. As long as we feel safe and supported, we will do it,” says Esquivel Ramires, a park ranger.
Trail cameras automatically detect movements of logging crews and all officers use EarthRanger – a cloud-based park management system that allows them to share photos, GPS locations and incident reports immediately. If a fire is reported inside the park, they can immediately pinpoint the location of the blaze.
The platform also links to external sources such as Global Forest Watch’s real-time fire-detection satellites. No fires took hold in the park in 2024 or 2025, Segasti says. In the past, one or two rangers might have arrived late and alone, now teams of five can be rapidly dispatched together. As a result, the team’s presence is more visible and feared and loggers and miners are retreating.
“Illegal mining, the poaching of animals and logging is happening a lot less. They are scared of us now,” says ranger Juan Sebuygera, wearing his green standard-issue, wide-brimmed hat.
Most remarkable is that the tech is neither costly nor complex, says Kherson Rodríguez, who manages the Darién project for Global Conservation. EarthRanger and Global Forest Watch’s real-time fire alerts are free: all rangers need is access to Starlink and smartphones.
The results have been staggering. Forest loss inside the national park plummeted by 88% between 2022 and 2025, reaching its lowest level in 20 years, according to Global Forest Watch. So far this year, logging in the park has fallen to nearly zero, the park says.
The reclaiming of Darién national park should help protect one of the region’s largest carbon sinks and the Indigenous groups and many animal species that live there. It also comes as tropical forests across Central America are collapsing.
“Nicaragua is gone. Mexico, Guatemala – everything is going now. If you look from Google Earth we are down to these little green patches. It’s the last 10% of what was there 100 years ago. So if we don’t get it right real soon …” Morgan says, trailing off, preferring not to elaborate on the implications of losing the greatest intact rainforest north of the Amazon.
Tropical forest loss doubled in 2024, reaching the highest level recorded in two decades.
Bringing park rangers who still work with pens and notepads into the age of cameras, tablets and cloud computing is a pragmatic way to turn the tide when climate diplomacy at summits like Cop is failing, Morgan says.
He says Panama’s turnaround also shows how co-investment – partnering with governments that also invest in conservation – makes rangers more accountable and brings better results. And it is also quicker.
“It takes three years to get a USAID or a Defra grant. You do a ton of paperwork, and by the time it’s ready, the government has changed, the president’s now terrible, the park directors are terrible. Everything can be destroyed in that time,” Morgan says.
Instead of waiting on climate finance, there should be a push for direct co-investment with governments, Morgan says. “This is just one park. Imagine the difference we could make with just $200,000 a year, times 1,000 parks,” he says.
So in my continued spiral down into the pits of fiber madness, I have started dyeing yarn.
Because I am Like This, what really tickles my fancy is specifically natural dye. Why? Because there's an element of adventure to it. It requires me to grub around in the ditch after goldenrod and crawl down into a creek bed after reed plumes. When you're doing it, what's gonna come out of the dye pot? The weather the plants grew in and the soil conditions affect things! It's neat!
This is great for the bajillion million squillion plants on this planet that will dye stuff yellow. I have hard tap water so madder root behaves like an absolute dream. There's black walnuts everywhere around here so tasty browns are no problem. I've got a gallon pickle jar of iron bits in vinegar to sadden those colors to olive greens and various grays.
However I am now running into the same thing humanity has run into for 10,000 years when dyeing with natural stuff; blue. Which comes from indigo or woad, of course. That's fine.
But more specifically, why is the simplest method for making indigo play nice a bucket of piss. YES THERE ARE OTHER METHODS BUT THE SIMPLEST AND TIME TESTED ONE IS A PISS BUCKET.
You can dye fabric blue with red cabbage, you'll need fo extract the purple dye by boiling chopped cabbage in water, then shift the color to blue by adding an alkaline substance like baking soda (bicarbonate), creating a pH-sensitive dye bath that turns from purple to blue/teal, into which you'll soak your pre-wetted natural fabric (cotton, wool) for vibrant results, noting the color can be fugitive and may fade with washing and sunlight.
I’ve written up a follow-up to my tutorial on how to dye cotton blue with red cabbage because it’s one of the most popular posts on my blog!
You can! It's true! Now, the dye is highly fugitive and will fade out VERY quickly if it gets any light exposure of note, but you can! It's very pretty, and if you keep the textile away from light it'll last longer, but it will still eventually fade to a nothing gray.
Indigo, however, will NOT fade, which is why it's still the queen of blue. And back to the piss bucket we go.
I chuckled when I first saw this comic by Jim Benton. It's the right amount of unexpected punchline and visual humor. However, I got to thinking about the reality behind the joke (my neurodiversity makes me something of an overthinker).
In the birdwatching classes I teach, I include some photos of common birds my students may expect to see in their neighborhood. One of these photos features a Cooper's hawk with a fresh kill in someone's back yard. I always use this opportunity to remind folks that when you put bird feeders out, you may end up feeding birds you weren't expecting--to include opportunistic Accipiters.
I follow a lot of groups and communities for birdwatchers and other nature-lovers, and I've lost track of how many times I've seen people bemoan the loss of their beloved songbirds to hawks and other predators. Just this past weekend I bit my tongue over a comment thread where multiple people were talking about deliberately chasing hawks away from their yard (in one case, while also deliberately feeding opossums!)
I've written before about having as much compassion for the coyote as the rabbit. But this reminds me of how sheltered some people are from the realities of nature, and how an ecosystem relies on all its members, not just the ones we think are cute and cuddly. Predatory animals play an incredibly important role by keeping other species in check and removing weaker, sicker, or otherwise less fit individuals from the gene pool.
And this isn't a new strategy. Ever since the first unicellular being figured out it could just engulf another cell instead of gathering its own molecules of sustenance, there have been countless beings whose evolutionary niche involves eating other beings. Predators don't just include the meat-eaters, either. A deer is a predator of the tree it browses on; bison prey upon grass. Unless you're capable of creating your own food through photosynthesis, you are a predator of one sort or another.
We may chase the deer from our gardens, but that's not because we think our plants are cute and cuddly. It's because the plants are something we feel ownership over and we don't want wild animals destroying what we've put together. And yet, the people who chase hawks away often speak of the songbirds as "their birds", thinking to possess them as much as they possess the roses they planted.
This is a great example of how we erase the boundaries between wild species and our own, trying to treat them like domesticated pets instead of seeing them as their own beings. In that, we do them a great disservice. Wildlife do much better overall when we respect their wildness and the boundaries between us. It may be argued that we're already blurring the lines by putting feeders out, but that's a debate for another time.
For now, I ask: Why is a hawk less deserving of a meal than a robin? Ecologically speaking, it's not for us to say, and a hawk shouldn't go hungry because of our sentiments and biases.
some actual dark ages accomplishments you might recognise:
Beowulf (manuscript dated between 975-1025)
the invention of jury trial (in britain, idk about elsewhere)
Insular artworks and illuminated manuscripts like the Lindisfarne Gospels (c. 715-720)
also includes baller metalwork look at this 7th century sutton hoo shoulder clasp pls
Carolingian artworks and illuminated manuscripts like the Aachen Gospels (c. 800s)
La Chanson de Roland (c. 1040)
national coinage for small kingdoms as well as major empires (in europe) (i know this is earlier in asia)
tartan
modern graveyards (in churches, with stone markers)
near-universal literacy (before 1066, as many as 90% of freemen are thought to have been literate in England, including peasants without land) and the promotion of churchmen and administrators from all levels of society
Ecclesiastical History of the English People (c. 731), one of the first post-Classical attempts at evidenced, factual historical writings, covering from 55BC to the 700s, and the stated inspiration for chronicles across Europe all through the medieval period.
the "Celtic cross" and other cool knotwork and animal designs in masonry, generally the result of Viking motifs being applied in areas with better masonry skills
wide distribution of law books
church parishes
The Book of Kells (c. 800)
horseshoes
the Hagia Sophia (now a mosque, but built as a church by Greek architects in 537)
central heating (really!) (also fun fact: we had central heating in europe before we had chimneys)
foot-pedal looms
grenades (sort of) (they were Greek fire rather than gunpowder explosives but you still throw a small pot at the enemy and it go boom)
Táin Bó Cúailnge and the rest of the Ulster Cycle
English translations of the Bible from the 890s
The Exeter Book (c. 975) which has some absolutely baller riddles in it btw
Ibn Sina's writings on medicine (1020s) - I've tried to stick to a European milieu here (since "Dark Ages" is a European term) and Ibn Sina was Persian. but under the name "Avicenna" and alongside fellow Persian al-Razi/"Rhazes" (c. 864-935) he basically reshaped European medical practices up to the 17th century, so, like. he deserves his flowers.
but also
SOME THINGS THAT ARE NOT FROM THE DARK AGES (a very incomplete list):
castles
knights
plate armour
common law, parliament, or magna carta
trial by combat
chaucer
pikes and other polearms (besides spears) (in fact pikes are generally considered to be a sign of the shift from medieval society into early modern)
the poetic edda and prose edda from which we get most of our understanding of "viking mythology" (although they're drawing on earlier sources)
the crusades
cathedrals (mostly)
stone houses
feudalism
modern cities
guilds
the black death
these are all medieval, but became major parts of european society after the 10th-11th century, which is generally the cutoff for "early medieval" or "Dark Ages".
(it's usually the 10th century. England is late to the party, less because of cultural backwardness and more because the Norman Conquest in 1066 provides such a neat dividing line that historians for almost a millennium have been unable to resist making it The Change Of Eras)
It’s a shame how much nautical stuff is focused on the royal navy, especially the ships. Enough about the battleships. Here’s some beautiful boats from other cultures.
(Left) This is a traditional Somali ship known as a beden. Traditionally, the planks are sewn together with coconut fiber instead of hammered with nails. Did you know ancient Somalia had a maritime empire?
(Right) Galway hooker, from Galway Ireland. The original cloth sails were treated with a solution made from treebark to protect them from rot, which just so happened to turn the sails their iconic rusty red color, and modern synthetic sailcloth is dyed to imitate this.
(Left) Viking boats (amongst others) were built with the planks overlapping (clinker) instead of being flush (carvel) this provides flexibility for the boat to bend instead of break in rough seas but still maintains strength.
(Right) a Māori waka taua (decorated war canoe). This particular one is Ngā Toki, and it previously held the world record for longest canoe at 123 feet long and 6 1/2 wide).
I can talk a little about Pacific Northwest dugout canoes from a maritime archaeologist's perspective!
So the first thing to understand about PNW dugout canoes is that they're deceptively simple in design. There's a long, bad history of people looking at dugout canoes and going "oh, how primitive", when the opposite is true. They're very difficult to make well, and even more stylistically simple forms require a good amount of knowledge and skill in construction and use.
Image 1: An unfinished canoe in Haida Gwaii
PNW canoes like those of the Haida, Nuu-chah-nulth, Kwakwaka'wakw, Coast Salish, and Makah nations (amongst many others) are almost entirely made from a single trunk of red cedar, which, depending on techniques, could even be used to make two canoes. Before commercial logging destroyed old growth forests, these canoes could reach over 60 feet in length (18 meters) — to put in perspective, this is two thirds the length of Captain Cook's ship HMS Endeavour.
Each PNW culture has its own way of making canoes, and styles vary from region to region. The fascinating thing about PNW canoes is that they are essentially tailored to the environment where they're constructed. Nuu-chah-nulth canoes, designed for the west coast of Vancouver Island, have a high prow (front) and a low stern (back) which allows them to be launched directly into the strong ocean surf that is a trademark of the region. (Canoe crews would then have to either turn around or paddle backwards when beaching the canoe.)
Image 2: A West Coast Nuu-chah-nulth style canoe with its signature prow and stern
Broadly speaking, once a red cedar tree was cut, the initial shaping of the canoe would take place right there — if any defect was found in the material, the canoe would be abandoned, as dugout canoes require high quality wood. This is one of the reasons why in some parts of the PNW, you can find half-finished canoes in the forest. Once the initial shaping was complete after months of work, the canoe would be hauled down to the beach for finishing. One of the major techniques in finishing a canoe is steaming, which allows the wood to soften and expand with the addition of spacers, resulting in a light, strong watercraft that is wider than the tree it was carved from.
The technological capabilities of PNW canoes are unmatched for the region. Nations along the coast engaged in long distance trade, as well as warfare, and different styles of canoes were made for these different purposes. Makah canoes were capable of travelling over 40 kilometres offshore during whale hunts, and I have been told a story of Haida travellers many centuries ago who returned after many years away from a place where the locals ate strange white maggot-like food in bowls (possibly rice). It's also worth remembering that canoes perform better in the conditions of the PNW than European-style ships. A key difference between canoes and rigged ships is that canoes can hug the shoreline and are less vulnerable to being blown onto rocks by strong wind. While there are some significant trade-offs, this manoeuvrability makes them much better suited than the ships that Europeans arrived to the PNW in. It is also possible that they used woven bark sails in their canoes, though the existence of sails in pre-Contact North America is difficult to prove.
Unfortunately, with the colonisation of the PNW, traditional canoebuilding was threatened by colonial powers and banned under Canada's Indian Act. The only form of canoebuilding allowed in Canada was the racing canoe, and as a result, all technological development was channelled into the racing canoe, which remains a vibrant part of modern First Nations cultures in BC.
Image 3: The Loo Taas (Wave Eater), built in 1986 by master Haida artist Bill Reid — the first Haida canoe built in Skidegate, Haida Gwaii, in over 100 years
[pʰikcha mawkst: kənim ukuk kʰapa nuu-chah-nulth-tilixam kʰapa tʼɬip-san saltsəqw-iliʔi-uput. saxali iləp pi kikwəli ʔaptsit ukuk, uk t'səm-nim kʰapa nuu-chah-nulth-tilixam.]
wik-saya kwansəm, munk-kənim-tilixam ɬaska ɬq'up kikwəli kənim-stik pi alta ɬaska munk-kənim qʰa uk miɬayt. ɬaska tiki dret ɬush stik pus kənim. pus-qʰənchi ɬaska chaku-kəmtəks ɬas stik wik-ɬush, ɬas mash kʰapá ukuk. kakwa ixt-ixt msayka tʼɬap sitkum kʰəpit kənim kʰapa hayu-stik kʰapa chinuk-wawa-iliʔi. hayu mun ɬaska munk-kənim qʰa uk miɬayt. pi alta ɬaska lulu kʰapa pulali-iliʔi pus munk-kʰəpit ukuk. ɬaska munk ixpuy-liplip kənim. munk-kakwa hayash qʰata-kakwa pus munk-kʰəpit kənim. munk-kakwa munk-tʼɬimin stik kʰapa kənim, pi alta ɬaska munk kənim manaqi-hayash kʰapa inatay stik. so kənim chaku wik-tʰil pi skukum. ukuk chaku dret ɬaq'aɬ pi kənim-stik uk tʼɬap ukuk.
kənim kʰapa chinuk-wawa-tilixam ukuk skukum pus hayu qʰata nim mamunk -- dret skukum pi kʰanawi iwa pot kʰapa chinuk-wawa-iliʔi. tilixam kʰapa saltsəqw-iliʔi-uput ɬaska ɬatwa-saya pus huyhuy. wəxt ɬaska pʰayt kʰapa hayash-saləks. kakwa ɬaska munk xluyma qʰata nim kənim. makah-tilixam ɬaska ɬatwa lakit-taɬlam kilometers kʰapa katsaq saltsəqw pus ɬatwa-nanich ikuli. nayka kəmtəks yaʔim: anqati hayu takʼumunaq kʰul, haida-tilixam ɬaska ɬatwa-saya pus hayu kʰul. ɬaska chaku-kʼilapay pi alta wawa ɬas nanich iliʔi qʰa tilixam ɬaska məkʰmək xluyma tkʼup məkʰmək uk nanich kakwa tənas-inəpʰu kʰapa pʰuli iɬwəli (alaxti lays ukuk). ɬush msayka kəmtəks uk kənim kʰapa chinuk-wawa-tilixam ukuk ɬush pus ɬaska tsəqw -- dret ɬush pi bastən ship. ixt-ixt bastən ship ukuk chaku-kakshət kʰapa ston qʰiwa win ukuk hayu-pʼuxən. bət wik-kakwa kənim ukuk -- əbə wik ayaq-ayaq! pi alta kakwa kənim ukuk ɬush pus ɬatwa wik-saya iliʔi. wik kənim ukuk ɬush pus kʰanawi qʰata; munk-kənim-tilixam ɬaska huyhuy kəmtəks-ɬatwa-kʰanawi-iwa pus xluyma hayash qʰata. bət kənim ukuk dret ɬush pus tsəqw kʰapa chinuk-wawa-tilixam -- pi dret ɬush pi ship uk bastən tilixam ɬaska chaku yakwa. wəxt tʼɬunas anqati, pi chxi bastən tilixam ɬaska chaku yakwa, shawash-tilixam ɬaska munk ship-sil kʰapa lakʰlwa-kʼaw skin-stik -- bət qʼəl anqati-ikta-dakta ɬaska munk-nanich dret ukuk.
sik-təmtəm-kakwa, wik-shawash-tilixam ɬaska munk-hilu shawash skukum pus munk-tayi-wawa, pi alta wik-shawash-tayi-tilixum munk munk-kənim wik-saya hilu. pʰasayuks-tayi-tilixam munk tayi-wawa uk shawash-tilixum ɬaska aɬqi kʰəpit munk-kənim, kʰapa "shawash tayi-wawa" kʰapa pʰasayuks-iliʔi (Indian Act of Canada). alta ɬush ɬaska munk kʰəpit-ixt qʰata nim kənim: uk ayaq pi tulu hihi. kakwa pus-qʰənchi munk-kənim-tilixam ɬaska tiki-munk chxi qʰata-kakwa pus manaqi ɬush kənim, kwansəm pus kʰəltəs ayaq-tulu-hihi kənim. alta ayaq-tulu-hihi kənim ukuk dret tʼukti pi hayash kʰapa shawash munk pi miɬayt kʰapa British Columbia.
Two images of Anishinaabe-style birchbark canoes with woven sails
For a long time non-Native scholars scoffed at the idea that Indigenous people in the Great Lakes used sails. Then people started going back to the original earliest sources and found that there were TONS of mentions of Native people using blankets, skins, and woven mats as sails on birchbark canoes.
And of course you know I cannot miss this opportunity to plug the amazing thousands of years old dugout canoes found in the lakes of Ho-Chunk territory
In partnership with Wisconsin’s Native Nations, we are preserving a pair of historic dugout canoes recovered from Madison’s Lake Mendota in
